Flow Merging

Another key feature of 'Smow' is the ability to merge flows. We can merge different flows or branches into a single flow.

Merging flow

Lets understand how merging works in Smow. The flow starts with an 'event' node node 1. This 'event' node triggers an event to the next node, node 2 which is an activity node. The flow is branched at node 2. The node 3 and node 5 forms a branch while node 4 and node 6 forms another branch. The two branches get executed independently.

We can see that the flows get merged at node7. The nodes node 5 and node 6 merge together to node 7. Now, node 7 is connected to node 5 as well as node 6. Among the two, whichever node finishes it's activity sends an input signal to node 7 and it starts performing it's activity and sends an input signal to the next connected node which is the node 8. After that, the other node which finishes it's activity later, sends an input signal to node 7 and the node 7 again performs its activity. Thus the flow from node 7 onwards, runs twice. This is how merging flows work in Smow.